Archive for the ‘Interesting’ Category

We all know that there are millions of WordPress users all over the globe. Wouldn’t it be nice to see where they are located? With WPWorldMap.net, now you can!

WPWorldMap.net is a new website created by Oliver Schloebe of WPSeek.com that lets WordPress users mark their location onto a map for others to see. Each marked location reveals user profiles complete with personal information, a link to their blogs, and also their Twitter accounts.

Powered by Google Maps, the site is relatively easy to use. To map yourself all you need to do is to place a pin marker on your location and then signing up by filling in the required fields on the site’s registration form. It’s so easy that it only takes a few minutes.

Surveying the world map, on the other hand, is as easy as clicking and dragging. You can zoom in and out and even display the world in terrain, map, or satellite form. There’s also a search functionality that let’s you search according to users. You can even add a filter if you just want to display WordPress users, developers, core developers, WordPress related companies, or even fans.

The great thing about this new site is that it gives us a good picture of how many WordPress users there are, not just in the whole world, but also in a particular country or area. This is great tool if you want to find out if there are any WordPress users near your location which is ideal for making new friends and for blog networking!

But of course, the site needs the cooperation of the community as it cannot populate itself. So if you don’t mind revealing your location to others, why not sign up and map yourself now. Oh, and don’t forget to share it to your friends!

So effective immediately, we are ceasing development of SimplePie and shutting down the project. We will shortly be pushing all code to GitHub. The mailing list will continue to serve users for the time being, but my sincerest hope is that someone will take up the charge to fork SimplePie, fix all of its issues, and continue on with this project thatâ€™s been such a huge part of my life for the past 5 years.

While I am not sure what this means for the long term use of the code as they are going to give away the final release to whomever wants it via GitHub. It is always interesting to me to see big projects loose steam, despite the sadness that surrounds the demise of an otherwise great project and product.

The question now is: who will continue on helping people parse RSS feeds in the future? WordPress 2.9 was set to use SimplePie version 1.3. What will they use for WordPress 3.0? Only time will tell.

Thanks to @problogger, I found out that Eyetrack III had released a study, a few years ago, that you might be interested in if you want to know how your readers are likely viewing your site.

During the study, they “observed 46 people for one hour as their eyes followed mock news websites and real multimedia content.”

The results are pretty interesting, and a bit surprising in a few places. They talk about the effects of homepage layout on how people read the content of the page, the best placement for images, using font size to increase reader focus and avoid having them quickly scan through text rather than reading it all, and even the effects to paragraph length on how/where people’s eyes drift around the page. It’s all pretty damn cool.

Especially important might be the results of what happens when people get to a break in the text (say, from an ad), that could cause some people to rethink the layout of their ads, and site in general. They actually go into pretty good detail about advertising. The study is worth checking out for that section alone if you run ads on your site.

There is also a bit about navigation placement that could help some sites struggling to get people to drill down into their site past the initial entry page.

All in all, if you want to learn a TON about how people are likely to be reading your blog, and get a lot of tips about how to control the flow of their attention, I’d highly suggest reading through the Eyetrack III study. It’s a bit lengthy, but it’s so packed with useful info that it’s well worth it.

First Web Designer has a nice post up reflecting some logo design trends that they have witnessed.

It is always interesting to me to see how people brand themselves, and I think a logo can say a great deal about a brand, and its goals. That being said, I also wonder if with a big site like LogoPond, if you couldn’t find at least three or four logos in the last few months under almost any “trend”.

I enjoyed the selections though, and would love to hear about any of you using the trends listed on that post.

Recently, the subject of applications relating to blogging, development, and more have come across my desk more than once.

The first was my own attempt at writing a free college software guide on College Crunch which then was noticed by Online College which built upon the list, adding more things that students (but really anyone) could and should use.

Then, I found another great post, on noupe, one of the blogs I frequent, relating to Mac Applications for Web Designers, and so the question then is, what do you all use as a blogger? I don’t just mean blogging software, but Twitter applications, day to day software. What is installed on your computer that you rarely go a day without launching? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to mention which operating system you use, and please no OS snobs.

If you’re a WordPress theme developer you may want to keep your themes technically aligned to new commenting features that will most probably make it to WordPress version 2.7. Otto, who is a well-known and respected WordPress community member has published this article regarding his commenting features. Check it out! There is a preview to the new 2.7 commenting system at that page too.

Here are some of the enhancements that Otto covers:
â–ª Creating a 2.7 compatible comments.php file
â–ª Password protection check
â–ª The comments loop
â–ª The power of Ajax
â–ª Styling

We all know that commenting is one of the great features that WordPress is known for. Apparently the development team is taking this feature a step further by offering important feature upgrades like threading, paging and javascript enhancements.

I bet ‘ya this will result in better blogs as people can now interact intuitively from one comment to another.

I’ve seen several creative WordPress fan art lately, which broughtÂ me to think if there are any official or unofficial collection of all WordPress logos on the net.Â If you’ve got any WordPress fan art yourself, you may want to consider writing the WordPress team to submit it for all the world to see, or use, or whatever… maybe to just brighten up their day.

The WordPress fan art above was from WordCamp Philippines.Â Matt was quoted to “really like this art work”, though I’m sure he favors every fan art made for his WordPress work.Â We’ve seen this fan art on t-shirts and bags… they really rock!

What makes me wonder though is “can people copy these logos on shirts”, some of them really are cool and would be great to wear a few myself.Â Is there a way to ask permission to use them?Â hmmm…Â of if you would like to make fan art, would that require a permission from WordPress? double hmmmm…Â wonder how that works? anyone?

What does placing “ninth in the highest internet users in the world “mean? Â It means an undisclosed amount by Google purchasing Korean blogging company Tatter, that’s what it means. Â Google is setting it’s eyes on Yahoo dominated Korea with this move to “Google-ize” the country’s popular blogging software “TextCube” by Tatter. Â TextCube has been compared to Blogger.com rival WordPress.

Â

“We are excited to welcome Tatter and Company’s engineering team to Google Korea”, announced a Google spokesperson in an e-mailed statement. “Acquiring Tatter and Company will allow us to enhance our online publishing tools in Korea, benefiting a large number of users who already depend on and enjoy Google and Tatter and Company’s products”.

An excited Tatter co-chief executive Chang-Won Kim confirmed the deal on his personal blog, noting that Tatter had been “Googled”.

In a country where it’s all high-speed internet access (mostly), it is no wonder that with this move by Google, all other big names in the “cloud” and the computer industry in general will take a definitive move towards connecting with the Korean market.

If youâ€™ve been looking for an effective way to communicate those company memos, look no further. Â Let me introduce you to Digital Memo. Â Imagine working in an office where the company bulletin board is the loneliest â€œtoolâ€, the least used. Â If youâ€™ve got an important message to say, hey, thatâ€™s the last place youâ€™d publish it, right? Â Everyone just breezes by it! Â Unless youâ€™ve got a memo announcing a bonus, a party or a cook-out!

Now imagine your message as the first thing people see when they turn on their computers? Â Itâ€™s a CEOâ€™s dream. Â Instant communication from the head down the line.

Digital Memo is a system based on the power and convenience of instant messaging that notifies users each time you add a new post to your blog.

Â

Â

By integrating the RSS feed that is published with your blog into the Digital Memo system, Digital Memo enables you to use your blog as a tool to automatically send memos digitally. Get set-up in 3 steps:

Administrate your blog RSS feed into Digital Memo

Install Digital Memo onto desired machines

Start sending your memos digitally!

This tool has successfully integrated the â€œuser-friendlinessâ€ of a blog software and the â€œformalityâ€ of a corporate communication system. Â Each computer belonging to the company network will surely receive every corporate memo, promptly alerting each user with the attention your memo deserves.

Step 1: Â You come in the office, turn on your PC and fire up (or open) your blog.

Step 2: Â You compose a short memo informing everyone about something really important, or maybe inform them about their attendance to the company barbecue on Saturday perhaps. Â Or maybe write everyone a â€œgood jobâ€ note for a change.

Step 3: Â You hit â€œpublishâ€, and thatâ€™s it!

Your blog’s RSS feed will be monitored by Digital Memo and any new blog post you publish will automatically be fed into the Digital Memo system and distributed company-wide to everyoneâ€™s computer desktops.

Now I know what youâ€™re thinking – Is this very secure?

Yes it is. Â You and only you would know what your blog user name and passwords are. Â Your blog can well reside in the company server, where presumably youâ€™ve got that box all firewalled and tamper-proof.

Is it easy to install? Yes it is. Â The Digital Memo reader can be installed on multiple systems by using the MSI installer. Full instructions are provided with your documentation on purchasing.

Will the staff really see these memos in a prominent way? Â Yes they will. Â Every new memo you post will automatically pop up on everyoneâ€™s computer desktops. Â Thereâ€™s literally no way people will miss reading your memo. Â No way.

What if I send say a series of memos in a day, will the staff have access to every one of them? Â Yes, they will. Digital Memo will appear only as one memo box (or a neatly tucked icon in the system tray) in everyoneâ€™s computer desktops with â€œnextâ€ and â€œpreviousâ€ memos distinctly accessible with just a click of a button.

What are the other benefits of using Digital Memo?

It wonâ€™t clog everyoneâ€™s mailbox

It wonâ€™t trap any of your important messages/memos in crazy spam rules and folders

People canâ€™t â€œlooseâ€ the memo. Â Thereâ€™s no excuse like â€œI didnâ€™t see that memoâ€ from now on.

Itâ€™s turn-key, you install it and use it immediately

Oh, and it saves the forest too.. we donâ€™t need to cut down more trees to make paper!

Â

The only sad news is that Digital Memo is only available for Windows XP or Vista. Â Too bad for Mac users, but hey, if we can create enough demand maybe they can make a Mac version too! Â

Oh, and another thing … Â if your companyâ€™s communication structure is based on a strong policy that every memo should be â€œwritten on paperâ€… too bad. Â Maybe itâ€™s time to change the policy?

The Test

Weâ€™re only 5 PCs in the company network, I gave it a try, and found that it is very â€œsnappyâ€. Â There were no installation snags, the operation â€œCEO Workflowâ€ (described above) was a 1-2-3 winning combination that even the most cyberphobic CEO would appreciate. Â Messages were instantly received by every PC.

The Recommendation

Iâ€™d encourage you to go and download the trial software, thereâ€™s nothing to lose, really. Â You may want to try it out on the IT department, to start with, and slowly add more departments in due time.

Digital Memo is made by Popuload Software. Â A company, based in Montreal Canada, noted for their innovative range of software solutions that help change the way users interact with the â€œusualâ€ operating systems. Â A leader in providing RSS tools for communicating and tracking information, digitally.

The evaluation version is a fully functional and unlimited version of Digital Memo. The only difference this has from the purchased version is that each distributed post will contain a â€œtrial warning messageâ€. Â Not bad if you want to see how this new memo distribution method performs in â€œthe long runâ€.

Honestly, I was both surprised and happy when I heard that Google’s taking on Microsoft head-on by introducing an open-source browser… Chrome. Â It will be launched tomorrow in close to 100-countries. Â For now, I believe it’s limited to the Windows beta version though. Â Rightly so if they’re taking on Microsoft first hand. Â But for the Mac and Linux fans, there is a promise of a special version for Leopard and beyond.

Google has published an online comics board to explain what Chrome is all about, you can see it right here.Â

I personally believe that doing a browser program as open-source from ground-up is a good idea. Â There’s nothing like user power. Â With the community behind developments we are all sure that every feature will be born out of a real-life need, or a user demand.